Summertime fun! on Transfiguration

Professor Lilac Crosby

August 22, 2011 10:33 PM

Happy Halloween! [Third, fourth, and fifth years!] by Professor Lilac Crosby

December had certainly felt like none that Lilac had ever experienced before, different to say the least. It wasn’t as if she was unused to a large family gathering on Christmas--just that every other year, it had been her family. This year had been different, but she’d had fun.

Now, however, was not time for that kind of fun. Her intermediate class would be coming soon. In front of each seat was a small beach ball, a hopeful sight in January, hope that one day summer would come again. Even with magic, it had taken her a while to get the balls to sit without rolling off the desks. She was just a bit of a perfectionist in that way.

“Come on in, ladies and gentlemen,” she beamed as the class started to enter. “Please don’t knock the balls off the desks.” She waited until everyone was seated before flicking her wand at the board. The following word appeared in her own curly hand-writing: Cucurbita.

“The spell with which we will be working today,” began the brown-haired professor, “is pronounced koo-koor-BEE-tah.” As she said it, the spelled-out pronunciation materialized on the board. “And it will do the following.” Lilac aimed her wand at the ball balanced on her desk. “Cucurbita!” Where the ball once was now sat a pumpkin, but as she turned it around for the other side to face the class, it was visible that it was carved and hollow.

“Happy Halloween, ladies and gents.” Yes, she knew it was winter and not October at all, but jack-o-lanterns were fun all the time. “As you’ve just observed, this spell will turn a beach ball into a pumpkin, much like the transition from summer to autumn every year. It may be easier to focus first on the beach ball to pumpkin aspect and then attempt the carving and the hollowing aspect.”

Her grey eyes glanced around at the third, fourth, and fifth years briefly. “If no one has any questions, you can get to work. Feel free to work together. If you need me, you know where I’ll be.” With that, Lilac sat behind her desk, scanning over some paperwork, although not intently enough to not hear her name being called if she was needed. A particular paper was missing, and she glanced around for it, a brown curl flopping in front of her eyes. It had to be there somewhere.

OOC: Welcome to Transfig! Long, quality-filled posts mean lots of points for your House, so get right on that! Tag Lilac if she’s needed, try not to blow things up, et cetera. Happy posting!

Subthreads:

Summertime fun! by David Wilkes, Aladren with Samantha Hamilton, Samantha

Um, Trick or Treat? by Jordan Adair, Crotalus with Sara Raines, Pecari, Jordan

I prefer it to New Year's. by Daisy Thorpe, Crotalus with James Owen, Daisy

You have your holidays confused. by Dulce Garcia (Teppenpaw)

I prefer holidays where I get presents. by Veronica Kerrigan, Aladren

Shame by Ryan O'Malley, Crotalus with Arista Thornton, Teppenpaw

CLASS CLOSED (nm) by Prof. C.

0 Professor Lilac Crosby Happy Halloween! [Third, fourth, and fifth years!] 0 Professor Lilac Crosby 1 5

David Wilkes, Aladren

August 24, 2011 3:36 PM

Summertime fun! by David Wilkes, Aladren

There was a beach ball on his desk.

David noticed this in the way he imagined philosophers noticed that the senses could not be strictly relied upon, wondering – if less seriously than the philosophers were supposed to, though he had occasionally wondered if those guys from the Enlightenment had really just been setting up a colossal practical joke on history that had kind of gone wrong with that whole French Revolution thing – if it held the meaning of life. He put his face into an expression of seriousness as he sat down.

That lasted about as long as it took Professor Crosby to ask them not to knock the beach balls off the desk, because he then had to start trying to resist the temptation to do so. His expression moved into a smile, wondering what the crazy teacher had come up with that involved beach balls in January, hoping he was right to smile in anticipation instead of worry about the possibility of being doused with cold water somehow. He couldn’t think of any way the beach ball could be central instead of just a prop if cold water started coming into it, but the professors were professors and he was not because they were cleverer than him. They might be able to come up with something he missed. Goodness knew McKindy was good enough at it.

Crosby, too, as was demonstrated when the nature of the spell came out. He couldn’t make sense of it as anything but a whim of fancy, but since he was pretty sure he could pull it off, he wasn’t too worried about that. Doing so made him feel a little guilty, a little like he wasn’t a real Aladren somehow, but he had learned to take whatever he could get however he could get it when it came to pulling out the good grades he was going to need to get anywhere in this still-strange world.

A thought occurred to him, though, as they were told to get started. “How d’you think we’re supposed to work together on these if we want to?” he asked the person next to him once he established that person didn’t look too likely to hit him. Let Aladren vagueness be his cover for coming out of nowhere with things only marginally related to the subject matter. “Like, what would happen if we really did and both tried the spell on one of the balls at the exact same time? Would it work faster, maybe, since it usually takes a few tries to pull things off right?”

Dimly, he realized that the presence of beach balls, with their association with carefree summer, right after a vacation was possibly impairing his good sense. Experimenting with magic wasn’t something a smart person usually did. Mainly, though, he was just interested about that, and he didn’t retract the question.

16 David Wilkes, Aladren Summertime fun! 169 David Wilkes, Aladren 0 5

Samantha Hamilton

August 25, 2011 3:54 AM

Summertime in winter? by Samantha Hamilton

The more she learned about transfiguration, the more Samantha found herself enjoying the subject. It was hard, but she liked that about it; one of the reasons she was sorted into Aladren, she was sure. The fourth year liked the feeling of accomplishment when she overcame a challenge, and transfiguration classes were full of challenges. Today, for example, her first obstacle to overcome was to figure out why there were beach balls on the desks in January. As the professor 'explained' the class, this point actually did not become more apparent. In fact it became even further inexplicable as they were instructed to turn it into a pumpkin. Although both items were wholly inappropriate for the time of year, that wasn't actually what struck Samantha first about the class. She thought it sounded, well, too easy. Admittedly, turning an item that had very little to it other than air and a thin layer of plastic into a vegetable, potentially already carved and with illumintaion, was more difficult that other inanimate to inanimate transfigurations, but any such spell was at a fairly basic level compared to what Samantha would have liked to study. Surely they should be turning animate objects inanimate by this stage.

Regardless, Samantha supposed that at least she would have an easy class, and hopefully an easy grade, before her. She was just collecting together her thoughts and her wand in preparation for the spell, when the person at the next desk, David, said, "How d’you think we’re supposed to work together on these if we want to?". Samantha looked at him with her head tilted a little to the side in contemplation. She had naturally just assumed they would, if working with a partner, just take turns on their own beach balls, working together in the sense that they could offer each other support and advice. But then he said, "Like, what would happen if we really did and both tried the spell on one of the balls at the exact same time? Would it work faster, maybe, since it usually takes a few tries to pull things off right?"

Samantha smiled at his interesting perspective. "I don't know," she said truthfully. "But we could find out, if you like." It did seem to her that the worst that could happen was that they exploded a pumpkin and the class got covered in seeds and bits of pulp, but at least it would be a talking point for the rest of the year. She had taken the time - as was normal these days - to tie her sleeked light brown hair up into a neat twist, and she would rather not have bits of pumpkin in it by choice, but it wouldn't cause any lasting damage. As for her outift, she'd run with plain jeans and a star-patterned t-shirt today, so it wasn't like she'd be ruining her wardrobe. She was even willing to bet that they wouldn't get into a whole lot of trouble with Crosby - she didn't seem the sort to hand out detentions just for one spell gone awry. All in all, Samantha was willing to test David's theory.

0 Samantha Hamilton Summertime in winter? 159 Samantha Hamilton 0 5

David

August 25, 2011 3:18 PM

Yeah, I guess fall in winter is a little closer. by David

Another Aladren was always theoretically a plus when it came to working in pairs, but sometimes a downside for David was that many of his Housemates were as serious as Crotali. More serious than some Crotali, even. He took his work seriously, he guessed, but he didn’t see a point in being serious about it all the time.

As far as that went, Samantha Hamilton seemed, to him, all right. He knew that was another conclusion without logic, since they mostly knew each other through Quidditch and most of the guys on the team were some of the most uptight individuals he’d ever met, but there it was, and she gave him a scrap of evidence for it when she took his thought about doubling the spell in stride instead of devolving into a technical analysis or otherwise severely telling him to go about the work he had been set.

A little voice in the back of his head was doing that in her place, though, going on about how Professor Crosby, especially in her still new-seeming professional mode, might react to things like a pair of beach balls becoming fused together, or melting, or blowing up. Sure, it might be great fun for a moment, but was it really worth being punished for? Plus, last year, he had been a beginner, as he very well knew, since with two professors he still was. Surely someone smarter had thought of the idea of two trying a spell at once before, and there was a good reason why it wasn’t standard practice besides the likelihood, from the histories he’d read, that a wizard might find himself alone with a wand and not much else many times over the course of his life….

He ignored it. “Sure, why not?” he asked rhetorically. He started to talk a little faster, but once more ignored the danger signal that he was doing something he had a very good reason not to do. “Count of three? One, two, three…Cucerbita.”

Now, to see if they had gotten the timing close enough to see what happened, if anything had happened…Maybe two spells could cancel each other out? He guessed he could have just looked all this up in the library, but it seemed quicker this way. And if that, him liking experimenting more than books, wouldn’t have happened in his old life, he didn’t know what wouldn’t.

16 David Yeah, I guess fall in winter is a little closer. 169 David 0 5

Jordan Adair, Crotalus

August 26, 2011 11:27 PM

Um, Trick or Treat? by Jordan Adair, Crotalus

Midterm had resumed in more or less the same manner as always. Headmasters had changed before, so it really didn’t come as a terrible shock. She liked either well enough, but hadn’t had either long enough to care who was in charge. Though, she did hope everything was fine with Headmaster Regal. Otherwise, life was uneventful with the exception that there was going to be a ball. Over the holiday, they had gone shopping and they had each gotten to choose an outfit for the occasion. However, she had been the only one that had been excited by the prospect. Dani and Alice hadn’t shared her enthusiasm. Dani had claimed that the dance was going to end up being a popularity contest to see who ended up going with whom. After all, there was a limited selection.

Then, there was Alice who was uncomfortable with the idea of anything that forced her out of academics. At least for this class, she didn’t have to share it with Alice. She always hated sharing classes with her younger sister, because she felt like the professor was comparing them on some level like she was supposed to be just as smart as Alice. Unfortunately, while this was a positive to being in the Intermediate class, there was a negative too. She was a third year, and while there was other third years in the class obviously, there were also fourth and fifth years. She felt like she would never be able to keep up with the older kids. They had so much more experience with a wand than she did. Sigh. She just couldn’t win.

But then, it was Transfiguration that they were grouped in. Her eyebrow raised and her head tilted to one side when the professor changed a ball to a pumpkin. A pumpkin? Then, the professor continued with a ‘Happy Halloween?’ Was she being serious? Did she really think it was Halloween? Jordan hoped she didn’t. That would be awkward if she did since it was way past the holiday. Hadn’t she noticed all the Christmas and Hanukah stuff that had been displayed? Weird. Oh, well. There was no point in arguing with the professor. She couldn’t afford to be on any professor’s bad side when she so desperately needed all the help she could get in relation to her grades.

Blue eyes starred in frustration at the ball that was on her desk. This was going to be impossible! How was she ever going to manage to turn a ball into a pumpkin? She tugged on her brown braid. That was the nice thing about being thirteen instead of eleven. Her hair was longer than it had been then and now she was able to put it into two neat braids. The affect was one that made her look absolutely adorable, but that didn’t really help her any. Or did it? Maybe it would. Turning to the person, in the hopes they would be unable to resist her adorableness and would agree to do help her with her work, she asked, “Are you having any luck with this? Cause I’m certainly not.”

0 Jordan Adair, Crotalus Um, Trick or Treat? 0 Jordan Adair, Crotalus 0 5

Daisy Thorpe, Crotalus

August 29, 2011 4:14 PM

I prefer it to New Year's. by Daisy Thorpe, Crotalus

Well, Daisy thought dryly as she took a seat in Professor Crosby's classroom, at least you could always count on Transfiguration not to be entirely boring. Some days the spells could be easier or harder than others, and the easy ones didn't stay interesting, but there was usually at least an intriguing lead-in.

She looked at the thing on the desk, toying absently with the end of the single black-brown braid she had put her hair in today. It looked like a ball a child would play with, a little incongruous for Intermediates. She remembered there had been a problem with Crosby talking to them as though they were none too bright four-year-olds when they and she were all new, but she was much better now, so Daisy's guess was that they were going to be turning the balls into something more appropriate. Maybe it was a New Year's theme - casting aside the toys of childhood, renewal, some sentimental rot like that...

...Or not. She blinked at being told Happy Halloween. Okay, whatever. Daisy liked Halloween. Candy corn was a highlight of the year for her, as were the chocolate lava cakes it was easier to get her hands on then than at any other time of year, and the costumes were, too. Masked parties were entertaining. New Year's sometimes had those, too, but Halloween was more colorful, so she preferred it to the other. She could do with more Halloween.

Of course, she thought that she would generally send a staff member to buy and carve pumpkins for Jak-O'-Lanterns, but this could actually be a useful spell. She intended to host huge Halloween parties as an adult, and she might need to whip a pumpkin up on the spot sometime.

"Cucurbita," she said coolly, and smiled very slightly when the ball became slightly larger, with furrows and a distinctly orange color except a greenish blot at the top.

"Not bad," she said to the air. "For a first try." She decided to wait for it to revert and start again from a clean slate instead of going further from halfway. She preferred it that way.

0 Daisy Thorpe, Crotalus I prefer it to New Year's. 0 Daisy Thorpe, Crotalus 0 5

Dulce Garcia (Teppenpaw)

August 29, 2011 9:25 PM

You have your holidays confused. by Dulce Garcia (Teppenpaw)

Dulce’s holiday had been very odd and yet, normal too. They did the normal family things with both the Garcias and the Santoros. She spent quite a bit of time in front of her piano. She was happy that the school had a music room, but the piano there was not her piano. She also saw her Music Teacher during the two weeks to keep her from getting rusty with any of her instruments. Her teacher was also extremely happy about the music room because it meant that Dulce wasn’t playing her instruments outside or quietly out of fear of being bothersome to those around her.

The odd moments in her midterm had to do mainly with her sister. On Christmas Eve, Dulce had played for Lita to dance so that their family could see her audition piece. Shortly after their performance, Juri had showed up. Dulce wasn’t sure what had happened during Lita’s and Juri’s talk, but she came out of it happier and now the two of them were …dating, or something along those lines. Dulce was annoyed but only because of how much Juri had hurt her a year ago and how forgiving her sister was. She would keep her eye on him though; just to be sure that he didn’t hurt her sister again.

The other oddity was that she had sent Christmas cards to some people in her life. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe to make some sort of connection. Maybe to make herself feel better. She couldn’t be certain. But she had done it anyway. One to Delilah. One to Rachel. One to her Music Teacher. One to Dmitri. That was about the extent of her connections. It was sad, but there wasn’t much else she could do about it. But what else could she do about it. She was sixteen now, so if she hadn’t made friends by this point, what else was she supposed to do?

But midterm was over and Dulce was now sitting in Transfiguration. Crosby wasn’t the horrible professor she had first been, but she still wasn’t a favorite for Dulce. Maybe that would change, but looking at the ball on her desk, she wasn’t sure that would happen anytime soon.

Dropping her head into the palm of her left hand, Dulce listened to the lesson and watched in mild amusement as the professor turned the ball into a carved pumpkin. Well, the lesson would be a bit of a challenge to get the ball to transfigure into a carved pumpkin, but that was about the extent to it. She would do it though, she always figured it out. Dulce felt that this lesson should have been done months ago. You know, when it was actually Halloween. She supposed Crosby simply thought this was amusing. June would probably mean they would be cutting out snowflakes or something.

Dulce took a look at her ball and transfigured it into a pumpkin. It was a solid pumpkin, which was good. She did this a couple of times to make sure she was doing it right. Once she had established the solid pumpkin, she thought about what it was that she wanted to carve into it. She sat there for a long time just staring at the ball. She hated holidays. “Cucurbita” She said as she pointed her wand at the ball and watched as it changed to a pumpkin and much to her delight (if one could call it delight), a scared cat was etched out into it. The pumpkin wasn’t completely hollow and the carve out wasn’t completely through, but she enjoyed the start of it.

“Not bad…” Dulce muttered to herself as she looked it over.

0 Dulce Garcia (Teppenpaw) You have your holidays confused. 0 Dulce Garcia (Teppenpaw) 0 5

Sara Raines, Pecari

August 31, 2011 9:28 AM

It doesn't really seem like either. by Sara Raines, Pecari

Sara had, of course, approved of Professor Crosby's move toward a more professional dress and manner, but had never yet come to trust the woman anyway. First impressions hadn't been accurate with her roommate, but it seemed that they really were lasting even when she had some evidence against them, and while intellectually she knew people could change, emotionally....

Emotionally, it was harder for her to accept. She supposed that was a flaw she should attend to. Sometime.

Today, though, she didn't suppose it very much. Colorful balls which felt strange to the touch were one thing, but being greeted with a cry of 'Happy Halloween' just after New Year's made her think that Professor Crosby was feeling strange again today.

At least the assignment did not sound very hard. The carving and hollowing might take a little work, but aball into a pumpkin, assuming it was already off the vine and dead, seemed straightforward enough to her. She could worry about detail work once she got past the basics, then get on to whatever else the day held. Sometimes that could be a pain, but she had read once that it was considered a curse to wish on someone that they lived in interesting times, so she generally avoided wishing it on herself.

Of course, things were going to be more interesting around Sonora soon, she thought, with the ball coming up. All the complicated little politics of courtships and rivalries were going to get very interesting, if she was right, but she thought she would manage to stay out of the worst of that.

As she was running through one of the concentration exercises she did better in Transfiguration when she went through first, a voice she expected to be a little more involved spoke beside her. "I, um, haven't tried yet," she admitted with a self-deprecating smile. "I was just thinking through how to do it."

The trouble was that even after two and a half years of practice, she still required a level of serenity, beyond even just calm, to be sure of her magic doing what she wanted it to. That was why she practiced keeping herself in check all the time, hoping it would start to move beneath the skin, but unfortunately, Jordan, like her friend Eliza and her roommate Daisy, had a way of making her feel too unsophisticated, too exciteable, too...short, though she didn't know why or how. She hoped very much to be able to be able to conceal that now.

"Want to try together?" she offered.

0 Sara Raines, Pecari It doesn't really seem like either. 0 Sara Raines, Pecari 0 5

Jordan

August 31, 2011 12:54 PM

Maybe an elaborate trick? by Jordan

Jordan smiled when Sara agreed to work with her. “Sure,” she answered. She had always liked Sara despite how little she actually knew of her. Maybe that’s because she always seemed to be so nice. It really was unfortunate that she didn’t know the girl better. Maybe that’s because she had always been more considered with what Eliza had been doing. Most might not know it, but Jordan could be a very insecure girl at times. Her biggest concern was having people like her. She wished that she could be more like her sister, Dani, who didn’t care what anyone thought. Today was a good example of such as her sister wrote in her journal rather than doing the lesson. Jordan had tried to take a peek at it once over the midterm and Dani had chased her around the house with attempts to hex her. Their father had finally lost his temper and they had got sent to their rooms for the night. They hated when their father got angry at them since he very rarely did, but thankfully, it hadn’t lasted long as he had come upstairs with bowls of ice cream for them.

The ice cream had come with a side of talking. Jordan didn’t mind though. In fact, it had helped a lot. Her father had asked her why her letters home always seemed so unhappy when she had always been a happy girl. She had talked to him about the politics that were occurring and about her roommates. She had left out any mention of the ball and boys though, because that was something better discussed with her mother. For the moment, she had needed practical life advice, which was best doled from her father. He had told her that she should keep her chin up and smile more. She had a wonderful smile and beautiful eyes. If she did that and kept out of the politics, she would be happier and would find true friends. So, this is what she had decided to do. She decided to stay out of Eliza’s political plans. She loved her roommate, but in honesty, she just didn’t care that much about whether or not she was disliked by one person. Her efforts could be better served by trying to be friends with more people and being liked by them.

So, who better to try and be sociable with than Sara Raines? She pulled her seat closer to Sara’s so that they could work on the spell. “Kookurebeeta!” Her brows knitted together when she saw the result was a deflated beach ball. “Well, no one is going to be playing with this one any time soon.” She shrugged her thin shoulders slightly. “I know we’re supposed to be learning this and I guess it makes it easier to go from summer to fall decorating sort of thing, but I don’t know of anyone that is going to have that many beach balls to turn into pumpkins for Halloween. Do you? Besides, I’d rather go pick a pumpkin than try and make one. We used to go every year to this place not too far away and pick one. There’s just something special about picking your own.” Granted, she had never actually picked the pumpkin in terms of getting down in the dirt. There were elves that did all that business, but she got to choose which one she wanted. Every year she always picked the biggest one she could find and it would always end up with a silly face on it at the end.

0 Jordan Maybe an elaborate trick? 0 Jordan 0 5

Samantha

September 01, 2011 3:36 PM

It's all wrong, anyway. by Samantha

So apparently they were experimenting with spells. Samantha didn't object, and while it had been David's idea to try the spell together, she was still sort of surprised that they'd both agreed to it. Aladren students were hardly notorious for spontaneity, though perhaps they could view this endeavour as an experiment of sorts, for educational benefit, and then it would suit their House traits with greater efficiency. Not that Samantha cared all that much; she wasn't actually as naturally smart as people seemed to think based on her House affiliation, neither did she believe she was baren of traits associated with the other Houses. She liked being in Aladren (in fact if she could choose her House now, she would probably stay put, and not just because it guaranteed her own room) - she just was simply as easily lead by the generalisations as her peers, and had to consciously be careful to keep in mind that House stereotypes could be misleading.

"Cucerbita," Samantha casted in unison with David, their wands both aimed at the ball on his desk. On some rebellious elevl that didn't emerge a great deal, Samantha almost wanted something horrific to happen. A loud or messy result would certainly draw attention to them both, and though it might not really be in a positive way, there was an old saying that any publicity was good publicity, and, translated into a school scenario, drawing attention to herself might not hurt. She could probably stand to draw a little more attention to herself at Sonora. Rachel's help with her outfits was definitely a step in the right direction, but Samantha thought most people probably still knew her as the girl who had been Aladren's Keeper, and if that was her whole school legacy then that was pretty lame.

As luck, fate, or fortune would have it, however, there was no explosion, no smell of burning plastic, or anything to really draw attention in any way. In fact they had produced what could be best described as a pumpkin, but it seemed to be very confused in itself, trying simultaneously to be too big and too small, with carving and without - and that was just its outer appearance. Samantha was equal parts curious and reluctant to see what its insides looked like.

"I think we made a pumpkin," she concluded to David, "but our images weren't especially intuned." That might be an understatement. She suppoed it sort of made sense - two students could make an object float higher by both casting the same charm, but as getting the object higher was all that was in their minds there wasn't really much room for creative differences. A pumpkin, on the other hand, was apparently more subjective.

0 Samantha It's all wrong, anyway. 0 Samantha 0 5

Veronica Kerrigan, Aladren

September 02, 2011 9:33 PM

I prefer holidays where I get presents. by Veronica Kerrigan, Aladren

Entering the classroom, the beach balls sitting on the desks caused Veronica to raise an eyebrow. For all of the things that she could think to do with a beach ball, she doubted that any of them would be conclusive to the lesson. Thankfully, while the Transfiguration lessons were the works of a crazy woman, she had been able to work this to her advantage in the past. She had learned well that flattery would get you everywhere and everything. If she didn’t like the lesson, she would simply compliment the professor on something or another and see if she could end up with a writing assignment instead. Otherwise, she would obligingly attempt the spell.

After she pulled her materials from her bag, she hung it on the back of her chair. It was the latest messenger bag in purple and gray. Marla had purchased it for her for Christmas. She had to admit that her stepmother, though muggle, had great taste. Unfortunately, she couldn’t associate with her too much lest she get a reputation of being a muggle lover. Her grandmother completely disapproved of the marriage and Veronica wanted to please her since she was her sole source for the world she wanted to belong to. It was hard balancing between the two lives she had to lead. And every term she was closer to having to decide between the two.

But for now, she would concentrate on school, which meant actually listening to whatever eccentric lesson Crosby had planned. Her pink lips pursed at the mention of Halloween. It was far past the holiday, so she really didn’t see how the lesson was applicable to the present time. It would have been different if they had ended up with this lesson before midterm, but now it was a little late. And while she was intelligent, she highly doubted that she would remember the spell if she ever had the chance to use it. Otherwise, when would she ever actually use it? It wasn’t really a spell that jumped out at her to use. She never even touched pumpkins at Halloween. All the decorating was done by professionals.

Oh, well. The lesson wasn’t horrible and she supposed that she should make an effort. Though, she really had no intention of trying to actually carve it if she managed to change it. Holding her wand steady, she scrunched up her nose as she scrutinized the beach ball. “You will become a pumpkin,” she ordered it. “Cucurbita!” It didn’t quite change into a pumpkin, but it wasn’t quite a beach ball either. A second attempt proved successful and a third one made it perfect. Hey, she wasn’t in Aladren for nothing. “All right, then,” she said, talking to herself, “who is there to carve this thing?” Her eyes scanned around the room looking for a suitable partner.

0 Veronica Kerrigan, Aladren I prefer holidays where I get presents. 0 Veronica Kerrigan, Aladren 0 5

James Owen

September 05, 2011 12:25 PM

Yep. More candy at Halloween. by James Owen

Sharing classes with the fourth and fifth years was much more challenging that sharing them with the second and first years, James had found. Not to mention more satisying. Not only was the subject matter harder (which, to an academic like James, was hardly a drawback), but the spells were invariably more interesting, and the company was preferable, too; by which he meant that Josephine was not in the class. Thank Merlin that Jade was young enough for them never to be in the same class.

The progressively more normal their professor got, the more James enjoyed transfiguration classes. He was used to crazy females - the women in his family were nutty as rich fruit cake - but he preferred his professors to be stable role models. So the more frequently Professor Crosby looked sane enough to go outside amongst other people, the better, as far as he was concerned. Today she looked relatively sane, and so he chose to ignore that the presence of beach balls in winter was somewhat unorthodox. Instead he took out his textbook, parchement, wand and quills, and laid everything out on his desk in just the right order. He then re-fastened his bag properly, and set it carefully under his desk. This was equal parts being precise, being sensible, and preserving his already battered, second-hand belongings.

Once the class began, James paid rapt attention, took diligent notes, and was everything an exceptional Aladren student ought to be. When they were ready to start, he raised his wand, cast Cucurbita,, and watched as the ball in front of him changed its size, shape and color to look more like the squash it was supposed to resemble. As one of the younger students in the class (though by no means the least proficient) james had opted to aim for the pumpkin first, and try the carving afterwards. As far as he could tell, though, his product was more or less satisfactory. It wasn't going to win any village show prizes or anything, but it was servicable for halloween.

"Not bad for a first try," the girl next to him said, and James turned his attention towards her. He was sure her name was there someone in the recesses of his mind, but it wasn't forth-coming at that moment.

"It looks good," James agreed, "for a first try." He meant no criticism in this; simply that it obviously wasn't quite perfect, and didn't have the carvings they'd require for the class, but then she, like him, was in the youngest yeargroup present, and so her first attempt had actually been pretty good.

0 James Owen Yep. More candy at Halloween. 168 James Owen 0 5

Sara

September 06, 2011 11:23 AM

Perhaps we'll make it out as we go along by Sara

Sara nodded slightly when Jordan agreed to work with her, her smile widening a little at having her suggestion accepted. One more time, she'd done something right enough, at the very least, to get by on.

"Okay," she said, feeling just a touch nervous about someone paying attention to her. Just a touch - that one unnecessary word was all that slipped out. She wanted to wet her lips, but didn't, instead taking up her wand as Jordan did. The instrument was slim, slim enough for her to hold more than easily, but long enough that she still thought it made her hand look as small as a child's. She suppressed that irritation, though. It really was easier than it had been in her first year, but she didn't think she would ever be able to help noticing height and size.

"Cucurbita," she said, and one side of her ball began to swell, the rubber stretching until she worried it would give. "I guess not," she said quietly, mostly to herself, sitting back a bit in her chair in relief when it finally stopped. Tenatively, she glanced toward Jordan's ball to see how she had done.

It had gone the other way from hers, deflating instead of blowing up. She giggled a litle at Jordan's dismissal of her own work. "Nor this one," she said, gesturing to her lopsided toy. "I think we might have one useful one between us now."

She shook her head in agreement that she didn't know anyone who kept a lot of beach balls around, then listened as Jordan talked about picking pumpkins at home. "We've done something like that before," she said, smiling fondly at, of all things, a memory of Alan. She really was feeling nostalgic if she was almost missing her brother...though really, he hadn't been so bad for a long while, she was just in the habit of thinking of him in certain ways. "Mostly everything was decorating the house, but Mother would let me and my brother feel like we were involved, and pick some things out really ourselves for our bedrooms." Since those were private and it didn't matter if things weren't perfect. "I love fall at home. We have the best decorations then, and Mother does more with Halloween than Aunt Lila and Uncle Charles since Christmas is all theirs, and we have the best food..." She couldn't risk eating too much, even a little plumpness would go much too far on her small frame, but what she did let herself indulge in was always wonderful.

She realized she'd gone a little far afield of what they had been discussing. "I'm sorry, I'm rambling," she said. "I always get sentimental after we come back from a holiday. But I usually like real things better than Transfigured ones, too."

0 Sara Perhaps we'll make it out as we go along 0 Sara 0 5

David

September 06, 2011 5:39 PM

Want to bring in Easter Eggs for the sake of completeness? by David

When the spell died down and the ball was transformed, David couldn’t help but feel a flash of disappointment at just seeing a messed-up pumpkin instead of a mess. It was completely wrong on every level, but he had been kind of hoping that it would go boom. He had what his grandmother would have called “the devilment” in him today, somehow, and the outcome that should have been best-case was just a little lacking in the drama that bits of plastic and pumpkin hitting the ceiling in the midst of a plume of smoke.

Still, what it had done wasn’t exactly boring. He looked at it with interest, trying to make out which bits came from Samantha’s imagination and which came from his. David nodded quickly when she commented on how their images weren’t exactly in tune with each other.

“Yeah,” he said. “I wonder what would happen if we both looked at, you know, the same picture of a pumpkin then tried it, then looked at the same real pumpkin for a while and tried it. You know, if they’d come together better.” He smiled to take some of the serious edge off of it – though he wasn’t sure that was strictly necessary. They were talking about turning beach balls into pumpkins – into Jak-o-Lanterns! – in January. There was just something inherently funny about that. “Not that we can, but it would be cool. Unless you’ve got a picture of a pumpkin somewhere.”

Speculating was just something to do, he guessed. They’d get into the principle behind this later, and the spell itself wasn’t very practical – unless the pumpkins would be both natural and non-rotting? That could be good, he guessed, especially since some wizards seemed to put some stock into Halloween – so speculating and experimenting was something to do to pass the time and entertain themselves, he guessed, and maybe even get some eventually useful thoughts from. Or at least entertaining ones. That was, he considered, a useful thing itself. Entertainment was a valuable part of life.

16 David Want to bring in Easter Eggs for the sake of completeness? 169 David 0 5

Daisy

September 06, 2011 8:36 PM

You read my mind. by Daisy

Daisy glanced at James Owen's work when he agreed with her self-assessment, then gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Yours is better," she said, a simple statement of fact. Neither admiration nor resentment tinged her voice. It was what it was. She sometimes found herself whining about fair and unfair just like everyone else, to her disgust when she thought back layer and realized she'd done it, but intellectually at least, Daisy prized accepting what was instead of spending too much time sighing about what she wished things could be. It didn't make things better, and until she had the power to change things she didn't like, it was more likely than not to just make things worse.

Hers went back to its original form, as not quite botched but not quite right Transfigurations did, and she started over, focusing on the magic itself as much as the image of a pumpkin, imagining herself gathering up strength to do something with. She didn't hold it against Owen that he had done better than her on the first try, but now that she'd seen better, she felt the need to match it. Match it? No. Surpass it. Drawn up a bit straighter than usual, she tried again, "Cucurbita."

This time, she had a pumpkin in front of her, and if it was a smaller pumpkin than it had been a ball, it did have shallow but visible indentations in the shaped of triangle eyes and some teeth. She wondered at the shrinking - perhaps her mind had caused some of the material to be used for the filling, so it wasn't all turning air or just leaving air, since part of her thoughts had been on James, who'd gotten a pumpkin on his first try? - but she didn't spare too much thought on it. "And better," she said, this time with a hint of accomplishment in her tone.

She smiled to herself as a thought came on. "Do you think she'll put candles in them, or give us candy?" she asked. She wasn't terribly good at conversation, but she had never observed her neighbor to be, either. "If there is candy, I won't even care if she means it to treat us like little kids." It was not something a girl should ever say, much less say with a ball coming up that she'd have to get into a dress for, but Daisy didn't think it was really worth her time to bother pretending when one look would show her to be considerably better nourished than most of the girls in her year.

0 Daisy You read my mind. 0 Daisy 0 5

Ryan O'Malley, Crotalus

September 16, 2011 5:18 PM

Shame by Ryan O'Malley, Crotalus

Aside from Sally Manger, Ryan was probably more used to Professor Crosby's quirks than any other student at Sonora. They didn't really bother him in the slightest the way they seemed to bother an awful lot of others. Ryan really didn't get that. It wasn't as if Professor Crosby was mean . Plus, the third year was relatively good at Transfiguration so normally he didn't mind going to the class.

However, knowing her better than most of the other students did, also meant that Professor Crosby knew Ryan pretty well. Knew stuff that the Crotalus didn't want people to know. Such as how his sister had behaved during Christmas dinner and how she (and his mother) treated Ryan. The almost fourteen year old was deeply ashamed. Ashamed of the fact that he basically was afraid to be around a nine year old girl.

Plus, one of the things Ryan had picked up over the years was that in pureblood families, secrets were supposed to be kept. There was enough scandal with his parents divorcing as it was and Ryan's self-esteem was low enough-as in pretty much non-existent-that he already wanted to sink into the ground. To just disappear. Life would be easier all around for everyone.

Sometimes, Ryan just felt he couldn't take it any longer. He had thought he wouldn't have to with the restraining order in place-which had to be gossip fodder by now-but he'd been a fool not to realize that Carrie was still going to be terrible towards him, even more than she had been before.

Not to mention the shame Ryan felt. Destroying his family, causing gossip. He felt like some blight on the name of O'Malley. Who would ever want him now? The third year needed to have someone special someday but not only was Ryan a completely inferior human being but his parents were associated with scandal and while he would never hold that against someone-Ryan felt he had neither the right nor did he have any inclination to do so anyway- others might not be so forgiving.

The Crotalus looked dubiously at the beach ball on his desk as he listened to Professor Crosby's instructions, barely noticing how she had wished them a Happy Halloween when it was just after New Year's. Did the time of year really matter?

He poked the beach ball with his wand and sighed to himself. Ryan was about to do the spell when the person sitting next to him spoke.

11 Ryan O'Malley, Crotalus Shame 176 Ryan O'Malley, Crotalus 0 5

James

September 29, 2011 7:44 AM

It's a skill I have. by James

"Yours is better," came the reply that was similarly without emotional judgement. James agreed with the sentiment, but didn't voclaize this; quite pride was equally as fulfilling. The girl - Daisy? He could remember having talked to her before now, and not with unpleasant results, so he must have discovered her name then. If something was telling him it was Daisy, then he was probably right, but he sought to surrpetisciously check for a nametag or signature on her possessions - struck James as more level-headed than some of their yearmate counterparts, the majority of whom sigh and wax lyrical over a partially-successful transfiguration, rather than concentrating efforts into rectfiying the situation.

His musing past, James returned to his work to see whether he could provide something more satisfactory for a sceond attempt. He had already proven that he could transfigure a pumpkin, but he must retian this and expand upon it to create a sculptured pumpkin. Not wanting to bite off more than he could figuratively chew, James opted to attempt a very simple design first, of just two triangular eyes, because he was also aiming to hollow out the pumpkin withthis step, and that seemed to require a great deal of thought at once: to create the squash, hollow it out without it collapsing, and create a carved pattern on its front. Concentrating, he cast the spell a second time, with more or less desired results. The pumpkin was thinner than he'd intended it, but it was empty of its pulp, which had been the aim, and two lopsided triangles sat near the top of the part facing him.

"You tried to do the face all at once," James noticed, deciding it was acceptable to look over at Daisy's work since she'd commented on it aloud. She hadn't quite carved the aspects out entirely, but they were definitely visible. "I wasn't so ambitious," he turned his own creation to face her (so to speak, as it was more of a geometric pattern than a face).

"Do you think she'll put candles in them, or give us candy?" Daisy mused aloud, and James gave her question some thought. Candles were traditional for jak-o-lanterns, though he had noted that some children used emptied out pumpkins to store candy. He doubted it was a practical solution, because if unwrapped the candy would go mushy in the mositness of the pumpkin, besides it was such a heavy object to carry round from door to door. "If there is candy, I won't even care if she means it to treat us like little kids."

"It wouldn't be much of a change from normal," James quipped dryly. He didn't like Professor Crosby, and presence of candy would not improve his thoughts about her one way or the other, but it might improve his mood some. unfortunately, "I'd think she'd be more likely to offer candles."

0 James It's a skill I have. 0 James 0 5

Samantha

September 29, 2011 11:36 AM

Chocolate is good any time of year by Samantha

Samantha thought she perceived some disappointment in David's reaction to the... well, to the lack of reaction they'd caused by casting the spell together. "If we had a more in tune view of what we were supposed to be creating then I guess it would look more like that," she agreed with his theory in principle. What she was more interested in, however, was what would happen if one of them had tried to make a pumpkin, and the other had tried to make a carriage, and whether they would create anything like Cinderella's pumpkin carriage. She shook her head at not having a picture of a pumpkin. Se tought they might be able to find one in a textbook somewhere, but a black and white illustration might not be any more useful than their separate imaginations.

"I wonder what would happen," she said slowly, as the idea was still forming in her head, "if we tried to make different objects." Her brain was tending towards more volatile combinations. "Like if one of us tried to make magnesium and the other tried to make hyrdocholric acid." Potential a bad example, because she didn't known whether chemical properties could be accurately reproduced with magic, but David should have encountered sufficient chemistry to understand the general direction in which her thoughts were tending. "Or, you know, some things that would go kabloom," she simplified the whole thought process down to its barest form with a smile.

"Possibly not something we should try in a transfigurations classroom," she added as an afterthought. If the pumpkin experiment had gone badly then at least they could defend their actions because they were still trying - in a roundabout way - to do the assigned work. If they began to deviate substantially then even curiosity wouldn't defend them, she was sure.

0 Samantha Chocolate is good any time of year 0 Samantha 0 5

David

September 29, 2011 6:30 PM

Your words on this subject are indisputable. by David

Chemistry wasn’t something David had gotten around to studying in elementary school – making volcano models that resulted in red stuff getting on the industrial carpeting when his teacher wasn’t bright enough to realize some kid was going to put too much eruption stuff in theirs and hadn’t moved the demonstrations outside was about as much as ten-year-olds in his town were permitted, and his older sister Annabeth’s main comments about her classes had been to mention a running joke in which one of her classmates pretended to be stupid enough to eat the chemical mixtures they came up with, including the result of when some ninth graders didn’t wash a test tube and an iodine test ended up magenta when Anna’s unsuspecting AP Bio class tried to work with them – but ‘stuff that goes kabloom’ was a phrase that he could understand. “I like the way you think,” he informed Samantha.

Though, she did bring up a valid but less fun point a minute later. “Yeah,” he agreed again, a little regretfully. “Pretty sure our classmates would rather we didn’t blow them up along with the beach ball.”

That, he suspected, was one of the truer statements he’d ever made. It followed that wizards must not have minded as much as normal people, because there was some risk of being blown up that just went with coming to classes here, but he was still pretty sure that the average student even in Pecari wouldn’t list “having something blow up in my face” too highly on the daily goal list. “Indoors in general probably isn’t the best idea for kabloom,” he said.

And part of the fun was, after all, an audience. Finding out if chemicals would blow up when they were brought about by him trying to transfigure a single object into one of them while Samantha tried to transfigure the same object into the other would, done in the comparative safety of the Gardens while wearing goggles and without an audience would be interesting, but slightly less fun. He still liked it well enough, as this conversation would make decent evidence for, was past the stage Selena was just starting to leave, where performing any kind of sciency-stuff was the coolest thing ever. Selena was still hanging out there a little, but he thought Mom’s roses were safe from being dissected anymore. Aunt Mary’s would be in danger in a few more years if her grandkids went through that, but lacking the books which had originally been Annabeth’s with the interesting diagrams of floral anatomy, he wasn’t sure they would.

“Maybe…start smaller,” he said. “One of us focuses on a pumpkin, a Jak-‘O-Lantern, and the other one on – I don’t know – a huge tomato, or a melon or something. It’s in the same kind of category, but it’s not the same thing, see what happens.” He considered that they were Aladrens and their grades might not work out so well if their kinda-correct work wasn’t marked before they started experimenting. This was not the Aladren Way. Curious they were, solution-seeking they were, but bold when it came to things that could really hurt their grades even the more relaxed members of the House, such as himself, were not. “Or possibly practice on something that’s not going to be graded,” he added. “That might be a little smarter on our parts.” Especially since Samantha was in fourth year and close to fifth, which was kind of important. He expected to either go through his fifth year as a total nervous wreck or ruin his life being too cavalier about it.

16 David Your words on this subject are indisputable. 169 David 0 5

Arista Thornton, Teppenpaw

October 17, 2011 2:08 PM

Wonder by Arista Thornton, Teppenpaw

Arista had been looking forward to going home from school for the winter break, but that was NOTHING to her strong desire to come back to school. Sure, the almost fourteen year old loved being home, but the sooner the second half of term started, the sooner it was over. At the same time, school, to her, seemed as if it was a perfect respite from the hectic nature of their house.

As the oldest of fifteen children, Arista never had much privacy from the time that Addison was born a year after her. So being at school with all the other children who were not in her family felt almost like she was taking a vacation, an extended one at that. Sure two of her sisters were there at school with her and a third would be joining them next year, but Ris had no problems with the older girls. It was the little ones’ screaming and fussing and carrying on that drove her through the roof. Then again Arista, Addison and Amira had always been attached at the hip, so the three being at school together now meant that they were able to do things together, but apart from the others which was a nice change. Andri didn’t bother her, for that matter, all the way down to Analea the girls were awesome according to their oldest sister, but the little ones and their snotty noses just made her want to give back all the food she’d eaten. She felt as if she was getting way too old for playing the ‘mom’ and she was glad to get back to school to avoid it.

Arista was a different person, or so she felt, at home versus at school. The Teppenpaw liked herself better at school.

She was off to her favorite class, Transfiguration, with her favorite teacher, Lilac Crosby. Not only was Lilac her favorite teacher, but she was also hers and Addi’s Head of House. Handy, right? Well, she walked into class, smile on her face and she waved right to Lilac. Lilac welcomed them as they came in and she saw the beach ball sitting on each desk. The hot headed and stubborn redhead wondered what they were to be doing that day, though she knew she would not have too long to wait to find out.

Ris sat down gently in her chair, careful not to knock the ball off her desk as she looked up at the board to see the word, Cucurbita, written on it. Lilac pronounced the word, aimed her wand at the ball on her own desk and as suddenly as she’d seen it, the ball was now a pumpkin! Not just any old pumpkin either, a carved one! “WOW!” she exclaimed as she looked at it, eyes lighting up. Her very active mind jumped right to what decorating she could do for her house next year and thoughts ran through her mind like they were in a hamster wheel.

She nodded to show Lilac she’d heard her words and pulled out her wand. “Cucurbita.” she whispered to herself to be sure that it was the right spell and the ball on her desk turned orange! Turning to the boy next to her, she said, “So, I whispered it and my ball turned orange… I wonder if we say it together if it not only will turn into a pumpkin, but carve itself too?” she wondered aloud. “I’m Arista Thornton. And you are?“ she asked, pausing so he could answer her first question before sending another at him. “Wanna give it a try?”

0 Arista Thornton, Teppenpaw Wonder 0 Arista Thornton, Teppenpaw 0 5

Prof. C.

October 20, 2011 8:54 PM

CLASS CLOSED (nm) by Prof. C.

0 Prof. C. CLASS CLOSED (nm) 0 Prof. C. 0 5